OPS24LA011 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA20-C1
Diamond Aircraft Sales of Kentucky Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA20-C1 and Skyline Helicopter Tours Robinson Helicopter R44 · Incident: near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS24LA011
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA20-C1
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA20
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N857PA
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 2003)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Unknown
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Aircraft 2 · Robinson Helicopter R44
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N744AF
- Operator
- Skyline Helicopter Tours
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2008)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Unknown
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A Robinson R-44 helicopter N744AF, VW02 (View 02), and a Diamond DA20-C1 Eclipse, N857PA were involved in a near midair collision (NMAC) approximately 1.7 miles west of the North Las Vegas Airport (VGT). At the time of the incident the VGT airport traffic control tower (ATCT) was staffed by two controllers with three personnel available. The local control 1 (LC1), local control 2 (LC2), local assist (LA1), and controller in charge (CIC) positions were all combined to the LC1 position. The ground control (GC), flight data (FD), and clearance delivery (CD) positions were combined at the GC position. According to ATC audio recordings and post event interviews, the LC1 controller had instructed N857PA to enter left traffic for runway 30L. About 25 seconds later, VW02 requested a west departure from the transient ramp and the LC1 controller advised departure would be at their own risk. About three minutes later, VW02 and N857PA experienced a NMAC after VW02 had departed to the west and N857PA was on a southeast heading, approaching the mid-field left downwind position for runway 30L.The LC1 controller’s expectation that VW02 would have departed sooner led to an inadequate scan and loss of situational awareness. Additionally, the LC1 controller did not provide adequate or timely traffic advisory or safety alert information to either aircraft as required in FAA Order JO 7110.65AA, Air Traffic Control.
Probable cause
The local controller’s loss of situational awareness, inadequate provision of traffic advisory or safety alert information, and lack of positive control, that resulted in a near-midair collision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS24LA011
- Event ID
- 20231215193529
- Case number
- OPS24LA011
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, cause areas, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e1ab00a5f1d278a097e62f5df7eaa54fd50c010e02ec1f3eb769d1ca0f87ec53; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:42:28.762Z.